


A Pound of Flesh

by BearlyWriting



Series: Bad Things Happen Bingo [8]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Bad Things Happen Bingo, Blood and Injury, Caning, Corporal Punishment, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Torture, Prompt: Caning, Scars, Shiro (Voltron) Has PTSD - Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-25
Updated: 2019-05-25
Packaged: 2020-03-17 04:22:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,621
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18957772
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BearlyWriting/pseuds/BearlyWriting
Summary: "The alien beside Shiro pulls out a long, rattan cane, dark with the liquid it’s been soaked in, and Lance feels another wave of nausea swell in his gut at the sight of it."For the prompt "Caning" for the Bad Things Happen Bingo.





	A Pound of Flesh

They’ve stripped Shiro out of his armour. Dressed him in some sort of ceremonial robe. Even out of armour the Black Paladin cuts an impressive figure, all straight-back military posture and hard-earned muscles, but he looks strangely small up on the stage, surrounded by the hulking Catus, without it. There’s something...vulnerable about him that Lance doesn’t like.

The Paladins are lined up in front of the stage, the crowd loud at their backs - spectators in the world’s shittiest sport. There are two Catu on either side of them, but they aren’t pointing their weapons at them, or paying them much attention at all. Mostly, they’re focused on the stage, expressions tight with anticipation. That’s not an oversight either. Unlike Shiro, the other Paladins are still clad in their armour. Lance has his bayard, strapped to his thigh. If he wanted to, Lance could storm up onto the stage right now, mow down every one of the bastards that wants to hurt Shiro, and spirit their leader back to the castle. And, _God_ he wants to.

But he won’t. Because Shiro, the self-sacrificing asshole that he is, asked them not to.

He’s clearly not the only one struggling with it, though. Beside him, Keith is practically vibrating, jaw clenched so tight that Lance imagines he can hear his teeth cracking, even over the roar of the crowd. Pidge isn’t much better. One of her hands is clutching her own bayard so tightly that it’s trembling with the strain.

As if he can sense their rapidly fraying control, Shiro shoots them a look from the stage. This close, Lance can see the light sheen of sweat glistening on his face, sticking the robe to his chest and shoulders. There’s a slightly glazed look to his eyes that makes Lance’s heart clench. Unsurprisingly, it doesn’t have the effect that Shiro was probably hoping for. Keith snarls loud enough that one of the Catu beside them turns, but there’s no reprimand.

Only Shiro’s getting punished today.

Up on the stage, one of the Catu grips Shiro’s arm - unnecessarily hard, Lance thinks - and drags him towards the middle of the stage, where the sinister wooden contraption that Lance has been trying not to think about sits. Shiro goes easily enough. Whatever his headspace is like right now, he’s with it enough to know he’s not supposed to be fighting this. Lance isn’t entirely sure if that’s a good thing - part of him is desperate for Shiro to break free, to not go through with this.

Instead, the Catu shifts his hold to Shiro’s wrists and Shiro lets him. Lets him maneuver him into place in front of the stand. Lets him cuff his wrists, and then his legs to the wood until he’s stretched face-first over the frame. Lets him tug the silk pants of the robes he’s wearing down to bare the pale flesh underneath.

Instinctively, Lance looks away. A moment later, he can’t stop himself looking back.

It feels...invasive, to see Shiro like that. Their leader is usually religiously covered up - to the point where Lance isn’t sure if he’s ever even seen Shiro without sleeves. With the trousers of his robe pulled down, and no underwear underneath them, Lance is seeing a lot more of Shiro than he ever expected.

And he doesn’t like it.

It’s not just the expanse of flesh, it’s everything else. Because there are already marks all over him. The realisation hits Lance like an electric shock – a short, sharp burst of horror. It shouldn’t be a surprise. It _shouldn’t_. Lance knows that Shiro’s time with the Galra wasn’t exactly a walk in the park. Knows that Shiro has scars beside the neat white line across his nose. 

But seeing it is a different matter. Seeing Shiro strapped into that contraption, pale skin bared, vicious slashes carved into the vulnerable flesh – it hurts. It hurts to see the scars that litter Shiro’s skin – stark white stripes, a knotted mess of tissue over the small of his back, the curve of ass and the tender skin of his thighs. It makes Lance’s throat tighten with reflexive anger. Because they mean that Shiro’s been here before – been subjected to torture at the hands of the Galra, and that he’s going to be forced to go through it all over again. 

There are other scars too: thick, jagged slashes over the curve of his side, a deep, gnarled divot in his hip that looks as though a chunk of flesh has been torn out, a ring of white puncture marks in his thigh that must be from teeth. Keith growls beside him, low and angry in his throat, and the sound thrills through Lance. They should have fought harder to stop him. They should have _known_. 

One of the Catu steps out onto the stage and a hush sweeps across the crowd. The sudden silence presses close in Lance’s ears, feels almost like a living thing against his skin. There’s a low groan – Hunk, Lance thinks – that echoes eerily around the arena, but nobody seems to react to the sound, or even acknowledge it, besides the Paladins. When Lance turns, Hunk’s eyes are fixed on the stage, skin shockingly pale, looking a little like he wants to be sick. Lance can relate. Before he can offer any reassurance – and honestly, he isn’t entirely sure if he can, not here, not now – Pidge grips their friend’s hand tightly in her own. Hunk shudders as her fingers close around his, swallowing with a wet bob of his throat, and his eyes slide shut. Lance wishes he could do the same, only, his eyes are drawn back to the stage with an almost magnetic force. 

The alien beside Shiro pulls out a long, rattan cane, dark with the liquid it’s been soaked in, and Lance feels another wave of nausea swell in his gut at the sight of it. The Catu holding it is huge. The hand gripping the cane is as big as Lance’s head, and his skin is thick and almost armoured, covered in overlapping discs the size of dinner plates. Lance can’t help wondering how hard the alien could hit with the broad width of his shoulders and the bulge of his biceps behind it. Can’t help wondering how hard of a hit the Catu being caned can usually take, with all that protection. He shivers at the uninvited thought of exactly what a punishment like that would do to Shiro’s considerably more vulnerable flesh. Lance can only pray they’ve taken all of that into account. 

When the Catu on stage steps forward, a strange shiver of anticipation ripples through the crowd. Then silence is almost a physical weight until the Catu breaks it, speaking in a surprisingly deep voice that seems to reverberate through the air.

“The Black Paladin will serve 24 strikes of the cane.”

24\. Lance feels a bit dizzy. Just one looks enough to tear Shiro apart.

The Catu steps up beside the wooden structure. Shiro tenses, then goes abruptly lax, as if he’s forcing all of his muscles to relax through sheer force of will. Lance’s heart is punching so strongly against his throat that he feels lightheaded. Even the air feels tense, so thick that Lance can barely breathe. He isn’t sure if he’ll survive the first hit, let alone any of the ones that follow. Lance imagines that the moment the cane touches Shiro’s skin, he’ll disintegrate – burst into a shower of dust beneath the pressure of his own pulse. 

Then the Catu lifts his arm. Brings it down in a short, sharp swing, and cracks it against Shiro’s skin. The sound is like a gunshot. It rings through the air so loudly that for a moment Lance is sure it's him that’s exploded. In disturbing contrast, Shiro is almost silent – a sharp burst of air punches out of his throat, but it’s almost entirely lost beneath the snap of the cane. 

Another hit. Lance thinks this one might be even harder, but Shiro is still silent. His hands flex where they’re strapped together over his head, as if he wants to grab for something – to hold on through the pain – but they only close around air. Bright red marks are already blooming across Shiro’s skin. Lance can’t help but wonder, a little morbidly, if the scar tissue is helping, or if it’s hurting him even worse – whether the thick skin is almost numb, or whether it’s even more sensitive. Can’t help wondering, as another lash of the cane lands on Shiro’s skin, exactly how much pain Shiro has been trained to take before he breaks. 

The thought tastes bitter in his mouth. 

At the fourth strike, a tight noise of pain finally breaks through Shiro’s defences. It spears right through Lance, sharp in his throat, and Hunk echoes the sound with a whimper of his own, his eyes still squeezed shut. His hand is gripping Pidge’s so tightly – or maybe it’s her that’s squeezing – that both of their fingers are white. 

There’s blood on Shiro’s skin now. It’s shockingly bright, even against the blush where the other hits have fallen. When the next strike lands, droplets of crimson splatter across the stage and Shiro lets out a high, strangled cry, jerking in his bonds. Lance chokes back a similar sound before it can burst out of his mouth. 

‘Stop it!’ 

Keith’s voice cuts through the air like a knife. It startles Lance badly, but the Catu don’t even twitch. Not even when Keith steps forward, trembling, fists clenched tight. The alien holding the cane doesn’t even break his stride, bringing it down against Shiro in a hard strike that the Black Paladin grits his teeth through.

“I said stop.” Keith’s voice is a low growl that honestly surprises Lance. He’s not sure he’s ever heard his friend sound like that.

Another sharp crack. Shiro’s cry is almost as loud, reverberating through Lance’s head. Something wet splashes against his cheek, but when Lance reaches up in horror to scrub it away there’s nothing there. Just his imagination.

He does have to make a grab for Keith though, as the Red Paladin launches himself towards the stage, a furious snarl on his lips. Lance’s fist closes around his wrist and he’s almost jerked off his feet as Keith’s momentum carries him forwards. 

“Stop! Keith-“ he gasps, but it’s lost beneath the awful moan Shiro lets out, as the Catu ignores the scuffle happening beneath them. Clearly Keith hears it, though, because he turns on Lance. 

“I’m not going to let them keep hurting him.”

“We don’t have a choice – Shiro doesn’t want you to stop them.” 

To Lance’s surprise, Keith goes limp at that, sagging against him with quiet, cut-off sound. On the stage, the Catu brings the cane down harder than before, so hard that Lance is surprised it doesn’t snap beneath the force, and Shiro screams. Dark, red welts streak across his flesh, wet and gaping and awful, and Lance knows that they’ll add yet more scars to the mosaic already slashed across Shiro’s skin. The thought has his throat tightening against bile. Shiro doesn’t deserve this. God, Shiro doesn’t deserve this. 

Another scream, sounding torn out of Shiro’s throat, and Keith flinches where he’s pressed against Lance. Lance isn’t entirely sure how this happened, but he wraps an arm around him, and holds firm. It helps a little, as he watches another blow fall. 

Shiro is trembling, arms jerking in their restraints, and his legs are limp, no longer holding him up as he sags against the wooden frame. Part of Lance is guiltily relieved that he can’t see his leader’s face, shrinks away from the pain he knows must be there, or worse, the total lack of pain. It’s easy to imagine that Shiro’s face is blank, eyes hazed with a flashback. Those scars had proved that Shiro has similar memories locked away somewhere in his head. 

Shiro whimpers as another hit carves a chunk of flesh out of the sensitive crease of his thigh. How many is that now? Lance hasn’t been keeping track. There could be two hits left, or twenty. Shiro’s skin is an open wound of raw, wet flesh. It must be nearly over now. It has to be. 

It’s not. 

Lance has the strange sensation of being suspended in time as he watches the blows fall, again and again. The rise and fall of the cane is strangely hypnotic, and Lance feels far away from his body, as if he’s looking down at himself from above his own head. Up on the stage, Shiro has given up on holding himself upright, utterly limp against the frame. Even his screams have stopped. Lance has no idea if he’s even conscious anymore. Looking at the mess of Shiro’s skin, stomach clenching painfully, Lance hopes he isn’t. 

Finally, _finally_ , the Catu’s arm drops to his side and he steps away. Despite the force he had been putting behind the blows, there’s no indication that the alien’s been exerting himself at all – he’s not even breathing heavily, and if he is sweating, Lance can’t see it against his strange, rough skin. When he turns towards the crowd, there’s another ripple of something Lance can’t quite identify. 

“The Black Paladin has completed his punishment,” the alien says in that same, unsettlingly deep voice. And Lance doesn’t even have time to process the words before Keith is pulling away from him, leaping up onto the stage before Lance can drag him back. He scrambles after him, heart in his throat. What if the Catu are insulted by Keith’s obvious anger? What if the interruption to the ritual makes it all pointless, and Shiro has just taken the punishment for nothing? He reaches for Keith, but his fingers brush against smooth armour and slide off without any grip. This is bad. 

But the Catu simply steps aside as Keith barrels single-mindedly towards Shiro, Lance scrambling in his wake. No one stops them as Keith draws his knife and slashes the cuffs holding Shiro’s wrists above him, face set in grim determination. No one stops Hunk and Pidge from clambering onto the stage after them either, and Lance lets himself finally feel a cool trickle of relief. It’s over. They can take Shiro back to the castle and heal him up and keep the stupid alliance intact. Shiro did it. 

Their leader slumps bonelessly against Keith as his wrists come free. At first, Lance thinks he might be unconscious, but as he gets closer he sees that Shiro’s eyes are open, pale and hazed, staring blankly from beneath half-lowered lids. The look sends a chill skittering down Lance’s spine. He steps forward and starts working on the restraints around his ankles, as Keith holds Shiro upright over the frame, so he doesn’t have to see his face anymore. Bending down like this brings Lance uncomfortably close to the wounds slashed across Shiro’s flesh, and he has to carefully avoid looking at them, focusing on the thick leather wrapped around Shiro instead. It comes away easily enough, and then Keith is grunting as Shiro’s weight falls against him. 

“Here,” Hunk’s voice is soft, but Lance can hear an edge to it that suggests he might be sick at any moment. Then Shiro is being shifted, pulled gently away from the frame as Keith and Hunk take his weight between them. There’s a soft whine as the movement tugs at Shiro’s skin. For a moment, Lance has to stay kneeling where he is as he struggles to control the sudden rush of anger swelling in his throat. 

“’M sorry,” Shiro murmurs as Lance straightens, and he glances sharply at their leader’s face, catching Keith’s expression of surprise as he does so. Shiro’s eyes are still strangely blank, wide and white in his face. There’s moisture clinging to his eyelashes, clumping them together, dark and spiky against his cheeks, and tears carve silver tracks down his face as his head rolls loosely against Keith’s shoulder. His gaze is fixed on Pidge, standing close by Hunk’s shoulder, but Lance isn’t sure if he’s actually seeing her. 

“Matt.” The name swells with a wet sob, thick and painful. “I’m so sorry Matt. I tried –“ 

When Lance glances at Pidge, she’s so pale that he’s worried she might faint. Something flickers across her face – pain or grief – but it’s gone so quickly that Lance can’t be sure. “It’s OK,” she says, her voice smaller than Lance has ever heard. “It’s OK, Shiro, don’t worry about it now.”

It’s impossible to tell if Shiro hears her, or understands. Probably, he’s seeing someone else, some other time. But he falls quiet anyway, either satisfied with her response or too out of it to care.

Hunk clears his throat. “Lance, can you…” he trails off, but Lance follows his gaze to where the loose trousers Shiro was forced into are bunched around his calves. 

“Oh.” Lance fumbles, not entirely sure what to say, or do. The thought of bending down and pulling Shiro’s trousers up has heat burning high on Lance’s cheeks, tingling at the tips of his ears. Surely it’s better to just leave them down? Those wounds aren’t going to appreciate anything touching them. But at the same time Lance recognises that being dragged through an alien planet with his pants around his ankles is something Shiro definitely won’t appreciate. “Right.” 

He pulls them up as quickly as he can until he reaches the raw flesh at the top of Shiro’s thighs. He can’t look at Hunk or Keith as he eases them carefully up to his waist. He especially can’t look at Shiro. The Black Paladin makes a sound at the back of his throat, too quiet to properly make out, but loud enough to ring in Lance’s ears. As he steps back, Shiro blinks at him, and a frown creases the skin between his brows. Lance’s stomach turns. He hurt him. 

“Come on.” Hunk still sounds faintly sick. “Let’s get him back to the castle.” 

They move slowly, Shiro mostly silent, even though it must hurt – only the occasional whimper making it through tightly clenched teeth. Keith throws a dark look over his shoulder as they leave the stage. “The Princess will be in touch,” he snarls. 

For a moment Lance comforts himself with the image of Allura, her fury almost enough to rival Keith’s when she finds out how badly they’ve treated the Black Paladin. She wouldn’t risk the treaty though – not after everything Shiro did to keep it. Still, it’s a comforting thought, as Lance follows the others back to the castle, watching blood soak through the thin material of Shiro’s trousers.

 

*** 

 

“You’re never doing that again,” Keith snarls, before Shiro’s even had a chance to shake off the fog from the healing pod, ducking under his arm as he says it. Shiro blinks for a moment, bemused, but he leans his weight against Keith easily enough, and he offers a smile to the other Paladins as they crowd close around him. 

“I can’t promise anything,” Shiro says, catching up quickly, shrugging the shoulder that Keith hasn’t tucked himself under. “Anyway, I can handle it.” 

“I don’t care.” Keith’s voice is hard as flint. At the same time Lance says, feeling nauseous in a way that hasn’t left him since Shiro first stepped onto the stage: “We saw the scars, Shiro.” 

Shiro’s smile falls and he straightens, pulling away from Keith and settling into what Lance likes to call his ‘leader pose’. “Well, this is a nice welcome back.” 

Maybe it’s meant to be funny – or Shiro’s trying to dispel some of the tension that’s so thick it’s almost solid in the air. Maybe it’s serious, because Shiro isn’t smiling. Either way, the others ignore him. 

“You called me Matt,” Pidge accuses in a small voice. “You were having a flashback to the - to the Galra.”

Her mouth twists around the name.

Shiro’s face twists too, and this time the grief is obvious, even though Shiro is trying to disguise it as something else.

“Even if you weren’t,” Hunk cuts in, “it was awful. You should never have had to do that, not for some stupid treaty.”

There’s a pause, then: “I’m sorry. I understand why you’re angry, and I’m so sorry you had to see that.” He stops. Scrubs a hand over his face. It’s trembling. “But you understand why I had to do it right? This alliance is important, and – and they’re right, in a way. When we’re on other people’s planets, we have to obey their rules.” 

“Even when they’re total bull?” It comes out louder and harsher than Lance had intended. He can feel heat burning across his cheeks and the back of his neck, flush with anger and embarrassment. Shiro’s eyes flicker to him. But before he can answer, Hunk butts in. 

“You wouldn’t have let them do that to any of us. If we’d all had to take the punishment, you wouldn’t have cared about the alliance.” 

Silence. There’s a strange heaviness to the air. It seems to settle close to Lance’s skin, too thick, too…something, although Lance isn’t quite sure what. An expression that might be guilt flickers across Shiro’s face. Then it’s gone, and in its place Shiro simply looks tired. Exhausted. Lance wonders if the marks have scarred, or if the healing pod wiped them clean. 

“I’m sorry,” Shiro says, again. No one says anything in return. Lance thinks of the scars littering Shiro’s skin – of the ones he probably hadn’t even got to see and probably never will. He isn’t sure there’s anything to say.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you enjoyed :)
> 
> I have a tumblr at [bearly-writing](https://bearly-writing.tumblr.com/) if you fancy dropping by for a chat, or to request a Bad Things Happen Bingo prompt!


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